Commenter Carbon Dated sent in this all-encompassing Sully smackdown, detailing his greatest hits (like being in bed with the smoking lobby, printing a pack of lies to help put a torpedo into Hillarycare). I thought this little snippet was telling:

Even after his own magazine recanted the article, in 2007, Sullivan, while admitting “I was aware of the piece’s flaws but nonetheless was comfortable running it as a provocation,” defended his failure, and the catastrophic conseconsequences to millions of Americans, with all the aggressive conviction of a sociopath:

I think the magazine’s refusal to be mau-maued by the Clintons at the time – and Hillary was threatening blue murder against anyone who so much as dared to criticize her – is a feather in the magazine’s cap. We weren’t “out to get the Clintons.” Some of us – well, two of us – were merely worried that America’s excellent private healthcare system would be hobbled by too much government regulation. I am glad we helped head off the Clinton-Magaziner behemoth. Proud, actually.

Justifying his fuckups as “provocations” is weak sauce, and it’s part of the reason I’ve sworn the guy off.

I mentioned this a few days ago in a thread where people were going off the deep end about Greenwald. I do not understand why people cannot forgive GG his failings when he is very much on our side on so many topics but they luvs them some Sully who is so not on our side & so often wrong.

I still think people give him far too much credit for being “influential” in the digital age. I honestly don’t know if he can make it if people have to pay to read his drivel.

One of the greatest ironies in his pride at supposedly destroying single payer health care is that, if we are to give him credit for that, is the fact that we’ve added untold amounts of dollars to our debt since the 90s. The debt that he purports to care so much about might not be so large.

I haven’t so much sworn off as gradually crossed off various topics on a list of ‘things Sullivan isn’t dumb about.’ He’s an inviting writer, but in the end, the subject inevitably turns out to be a specific individual named Andrew Sullivan; maybe that’s just a coincidence but I doubt it. Nowadays, if I want to read an opinion from a not-too-crazy conservative, there’s Larison or Frum.

@Linda Featheringill: Supposedly, us men don’t need lines as we’re just animal savages waiting to hump the leg of anything vaguely female, so women should dress appropriately and keep aspirins between their legs and shut up, that’s why.

A healthy political movement embraces converts. The urge to excommunicate someone like Sullivan is quite strong for some, and I don’t understand it. He is very good on some topics. He is very wrong on others. But he is worth reading on a pretty wide range of subjects.

@MattF: Larison is a proud member of the League of the South, which appears to be a bunch of embittered old white guys longing for the good old days of the confederacy when they could sit around and drink mint juleps served by a fetching slave girl.

@Marc: Because his “conversion” has nothing to do with any kind of progressive belief or re-evaluation of principles, but only what fits in the category of “what makes Sully’s life uncomfortable” and the things he hasn’t “converted” on are policies that are extremely damaging to millions of people in this country, which is kind of sick as it doesn’t make Sully uncomfortable.

@Schlemizel: Sorry, mate, I am willing to bet that large number of people are not fans of either. I am not sure that Greenwald is on my side on a wide variety of issues. He is a civil libertarian polemicist and has some value as such. Sully is pretty much a useless git who occasionally gets something right. Honestly, I have very little time for either.

From a UK perspective, one of the more interesting things (to me) that I’ve noticed over the past year or so with Andrew Sullivan, is that he’s no longer praising the Tories, whose austerity programme he championed. He’s had very little to say about UK politics for some time… down the memory hole, like so much else.

@Schlemizel: Because people (including myself) think that Greenwald is disingenuous. I don’t want to get in a fight about every post the guy has written, I think he’s talented and very effectively backs up his points. However, he also pretends there is no other argument to be made but his when there usually is. For instance – regarding Osama bin Laden http://www.salon.com/2011/05/02/bin_laden_12/ he very effectively detailed the case for why the rule of law should matter. It’s the topic on which he blogs, so no one should expect any other response, and it’s a good argument. He also details the legality of using force in the situation. However that’s called a ‘legality’ and he peers into his crystal ball to tell us that ‘it will be ignored’. He also then goes the extra mile to start capitalizing arguments others would use against him to point out that if you disagree with him you are a victim of ‘the big lie’.
Greenwald appears in the dictionary next to the entry on purity troll. Have you ever heard him propose a solution, or just argue against something? Has he ever been able to argue a point without belittling anyone who disagrees with him? I realize I sited only one example and extrapolated, but I believe the example to be very representative.

“Blue Murder” is a good, if not phenomenal, British police series which ran from 2003 to 2009 (5 seasons all in all). The main character is Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis, of the Manchester Police, who has a messy home life (separated from her husband, she’s raising her 4 kids on her own) and a busy career (she is in charge of murder investigations).

Sullivan has interesting things to say about art and culture but is basically useless for actual policy discussions. Like many things in life, as long as you have appropriate expectations you wont be disappointed.

Nowadays, if I want to read an opinion from a not-too-crazy conservative, there’s Larison or Frum.

Frum voted for Romney. Although Sullivan can’t vote, he endorsed Obama twice. If he could have voted, I wouldn’t that mean he’d vote for Obama? Voting for Romney seems to put Frum far outside the “not-too-crazy” category.

@Violet: people are complicated. Frum can actually add and subtract (see his analysis of the Ryan budgets versus Sully’s math free praise for seriousness at the start. I assume later Sully blamed Ryan for Sully’s idiocy) Yet he votes for Romney.

@Violet: Frum is a partisan, and has never pretended to be anything but a partisan– as he points out himself, he wrote book praising GWB. So, reading his stuff often raises my blood pressure and makes my head hurt, and when I start to hear that buzzing sound, I stop. That said, he’s a long way from, e.g., the coterie at the National Review, and has smart things to say about the dilemmas faced by conservatives.

Oh how i wish i had time to read this post and the comments but OT: I was at the va hospital this morning (there’s a shuttle from the shelter) and realized that the paperwork i needed was in a notebook that I had left in the apt while packing up yesterday. I was making phone calls setting up apptmnts and calling about the cats. I have to make a decision about the cats – I’m pretty sure I can get them into a place that will keep them for up to 90 days – but I’m not sure I will be ready to get them in 90 days. Apparently I’m even more messed up than I realized (boy is that going some.) I’ve been advised not to seek employment until i’ve been in treatment for at least 30 days and I’m not actually in treatment yet. Will I be ready in enough time? will I have my own place? Will I find a place that takes cats? I have to talk to my caseworker and get an honest assessment of my prospects… They may be better off adopted which was what I thought to start with. Anyway, I got the noteb0ok and am heading back to the VA hospital. Will be back here this afternoon and should be here til 6:30pm again – still don’t know who was here the other day. Things should stabilize next week and hopefully I’ll be able to catch up on balloon juice and find out things – I think I’ll be able to use my laptop in the VA library. Anyway, again i’ll be back this afternoon (probably around 2 until 6:30 – whoever was here…)

I thought this was pretty cool, till I thought how much cooler it would be if the words LAST FUCKING EVER were substituted for omnibus. Then I thought how even cooler it would be if people on this blog didn’t spend their lives obsessing over the masturbatory utterances of an overgrown British schoolboy of whose existence nobody outside the blogosphere knows or gives a shit about. Then I thought how ever COOLER it would be if I didn’t spend my time hanging out at a blog where….

The saying is a lot older than that. It is generally used in the context of “she was screaming blue murder at him” also “bloody murder” is used. I am not sure where the saying comes from and I am too lazy to look it up right now.

Not sure which number I am in the queue of respective agreement, but YES! to every single word, space, and punctuation mark of your comments.

Also too, the need to find and validate a “reasonable conservative pundit” (e.g, Frum or Larison [?!]) seems to me analogous to the Village media’s obsessive/compulsive disorder to claim and anoint the next GOP Jesus.

Chris Christie is but the latest to be fitted with that halo, and on Joe Scarborough’s frat house this morning, Bobby Jindal (Bobby Jindal!) was being discussed as a miracle-worker as well.

Even the best-off Americans – those who have health insurance, a college education, a high income and healthy behaviour – are sicker than their peers in comparable countries, says the report by the US National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine

(evidence would suggest that as the system has us spending the most per capita on it, tnen unless he’s gleefully unhinged, therein lies the true beating heart of his metric. Because, oh looky! among all the other mere human debris, the US has the second highest HIV rate and the highest incidence of Aids among the 17 countries.)

@schrodinger’s cat: I give it about 18 months. People are signing up with their membership thing for a year. So he’s good for a year. He’s got to start shilling for money in a year. If he doesn’t get enough, he’ll keep begging and try to hang on. He can probably do that for about six months. So, 18 months.

I’ve despised him since his 1988 THR article about gay imagery in advertising, a piece dripping with (internalized, it turns out) homophobia. If you have a TNR subscription, it can be found in the online archive under the title “Flogging Underwear.”

@PeakVT: “Balloon Juice has been trying to move on from Sullivan for five fucking years now. Will this be the year? /clasps hands, looks skywards ”

No, because he doesn’t go away. He’s one of those Permanent Pundits who can *never*[1] be wrong enough to be disgraced out of his profession. That’s the whole freakin’ point of that original article, that Sullivan has committed enough crimes against his profession to be cast out in disgrace, if his profession ever had any ethical code at all.

[1] There actually is one way in which a Permanent Pundit can lose their job – going left-liberal.

I’ve despised him since his 1988 THR article about gay imagery in advertising, a piece dripping with (internalized, it turns out) homophobia. If you have a TNR subscription, it can be found in the online archive under the title “Flogging Underwear,” January 18 edition.

I got a letter to the editor published in response:

Andrew Sullivan certainly is difficult to
please. In his article on eroticism in advertising
(“Flogging Underwear,” January
18), he criticizes one advertisement
for lacking passion, another for using the
word “passion.” He never explains what
the use of bodies as sculptural elements
in connection with bold structures has to
do with Nazi philosophy, except that
any photo he doesn’t like gets branded
as “fascist.” The use of bold colors is
reminiscent of “totalitarian propaganda,”
but the use of black and white
is “fascist-realist” and “proto-fascist.”
Poor Bruce Weber is scorned for being
too much like Avedon and Penn, but
also for not being enough like them.
But Sullivan goes beyond that. First,
he announces that a lot of ads are homoerotic.
Fathers, sons, and businessmen
(by implication straight), he says, have
been supplanted by gay male images.
Then he culminates this discussion with
examples of ads showing heterosexual
rape and child abuse. At best, this is a
non sequitur. But I suspect that it is no
more than an implicit bigotry that puts
same-sex orientation on the same level
with rape and child molestation.

@Violet: OK so we have a range between 6 months and a year and a half. I think he will find that taking care of the admin stuff is not all that fun, and he will go back to a cushy gig which takes care of all the drudgery. BTW does anyone know if he is going to allow comments?

@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t they still hold the pseudo intellectual Aspens Ideas festival which gives a platform to dangerous idiots like MoU and Bobo to spout their nonsense, to people who have more money than common sense?

Charles Murray is really a worthless piece of shit. He keeps trying to repackage himself for acceptance every decade or so, and occasionally gains some traction amongst totebaggers. I always like to remind the world that he’s a cross-burning, race-baiting, vituperative shit stain that believes in racial eugenics and took money from Nazis.

He’s basically an uglier René Belloq. I like the fact that Colbert took it right to him when he showed up to promote his latest book/screed (this one against the dreaded poors, IIRC).

The Atlantic is the kind of magazine I want to like, but their connection with fools made it hard.

A college acquaintance (and FB friend) of mine is literary editor at Atlantic. I’ve been wanting to ask him what some of those schmucks are like IRL, but I haven’t been able to think of a tactful way to phrase it.

@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, as any small business owner knows, the admin is a pain and a time suck and takes far more time than you expected. If he doesn’t have an admin person, then the two people he’s taking with him will end up doing it. Or he’ll have to do it himself.

@handsmile:
Have you seen? Christie is TIME’s cover boy this week, and under his ample visage is the caption “THE BOSS”. (There’s also a baby-pix to the present day slide show on the TIME site, titled “Born To Run”. Eye-roll.) His combativeness and heartfelt Joiseyness get played up, his less-than-sterling record of governance pre-Sandy not so much.

I am not a fan of either gentleman – my question was, and remains, why so much vitriol here for GG and so little for Sully?

As with any blogger I try to share them when I think they have a good point and trash them when they don’t. As a percentage of output GG is right more often than Sully (so is a stopped clock but you get my point).

@Amir Khalid: They interviewed him on the Today Show yesterday too. He looks so funny sitting in the interview chair across from Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer is a normal sized human being. Christie looks like a human weeble with arms. He’s too big to sit in the chair, so he perches. I just can’t see him going mainstream for the long slog of a presidential primary campaign, let alone the actual campaign. I don’t think it’ll play in the rest of the country.

Again, to be clear, I am not a huge fan of GG. I am just asking why the two guys get such different treatment. Sully is starting to get his due here but it is long overdue and still accompanied with some praise – WTF has he ever done to deserve that? At least I can point to some things GG has written where he was right or had a valid point. GG has occasionally supported our side – when has Sully ever done that?

Its not that I am a fan of GG I am trying to figure out why the disparity between treatment by commenters here at BJ

The pattern, set early, proves that no matter how hard [Sullivan] fails, no matter how disastrous the consequences for journalism or his adopted country, Sullivan’s career advancement is guaranteed to keep rising.

…perfect example of what I’ve been betching about: Our current cultural rot, led by teflon-coated “Made Men” like Sullivan.

@Scott S.: “What bugs me about the “I wasn’t lying, I was just being provocative” crap is that he’s not the outlier — just about every other big media pundit does the same damn thing. ”

I’m developing a list of offences for various professions which would justify forcing the malefactor to eat one pound of actual BS. I’ve got three so far:

1) For lawyers, claiming an inability to do math when the math in question is high school math.
2) For editors and publishers, excusing fraudulent work with the excuse of ‘provocative’ or ‘balance’.
3) For pundits, (2) and for claiming ‘both sides do it’ when one clearly does it far less than the other.

Sully started out despicably. He got more liberal/sane with the time, but was it out of conviction or because of opportunism? After all, he came onto the scene with movement conservatism at its peak, early 90’s, Gingrich revolution. And as conservatism shrunk down to its hateful rump he cut himself loose, but after all, his homosexuality would have thrown him out of the club anyway.
This piece has the look of a requiem and the paywall might lead to his irrelevance. After all, opinionating on the web is easy. And there a re lots of link aggregators out there.

Greenwald targets liberal democrats in a particularly divisive way. It’s not surprising that they have become hostile because of nasty personal attacks (“obot”, “worshiper of Dear Leader”, “love killing brown babies”) directed at them by him and his online allies.

While not disagreeing with your larger point that “Permanent Pundits” professionally inhabit a disgrace- or shame-free zone, I’m struggling to think of one from that ethically invulnerable class who became “left-liberal,” much less lost their job because of it.

One might suggest Phil Donahue or Dan Froomkin who both lost their mass media jobs (MSNBC; WaPo blog) for their discomfiting political views, but both were decidedly liberal to begin with. There must be examples I cannot recall at the moment.

It would seem that to be awarded the “Permanent Pundit” merit badge from the corporate media, one must espouse at least a right-of-center ideology, just like all Real Heartland Americans.

I am just asking why the two guys get such different treatment. Sully is starting to get his due here but it is long overdue and still accompanied with some praise – WTF has he ever done to deserve that? At least I can point to some things GG has written where he was right or had a valid point.

If you’re going to build your street cred on carrying water for a murderous nutjub racist like Matthew Hale, you should at least have a substantial likelihood of prevailing. In GG’s case, he was foreordained a loss, but never learned to keep his useless, incompetent mouth shut.

Later, when he embraced the sobbing emopurityprog mien, some of us were less impressed by his calls for grotesque pain for others as a matter of principle, all while he’d feel none of the pain at all from his safe haven in Brazil.

@AxelFoley: Greenwald’s Salon site is on the blogroll, even though he’s long since moved to the Guardian. I think BJ’s frontpagers are a bit too conscientious to just dump him. But they aren’t making his current stuff accessible. Anyway, GG will come back into favor 1 week after the next Republican president is inaugurated; count on it.

Sully spent quite some time on the regular blogroll during Obama’s first term, before his antics got him permanently mocked (I could be wrong but I think it was his freakout over the first debate that did him in). But he was taken seriously around here for a good long while, as most of us remember, even though he was the exact same bigoted Thatcherite sellout then that he’s always been. It cannot be denied: kissing Obama’s ass always scores huge points around here.

@Schlemizel: I’ll take your word for that, since I’ve never seen him in person. But when you see Matt Lauer next to other people–guests or even the tourists outside on their plaza, he seems like a fairly normal sized guy. Maybe he’s on the short/small side, but he’s not and exaggeration of those. Christie, however, looks like a parade balloon. He’s not just large, he’s rotund–like a blimp with arms. I am not trying to beat up on him for his weight–just making an observation of how it comes across when he’s on TV and wearing the suit or clothes he’s chosen to wear. I simply can’t see him holding up under the strain of a long campaign. He’d have heatstroke in Florida in the summer.

Except the thread I originally brought this up in had nothing to do with GG but turned into a two minutes of hate for him. Never seen that with Sully.

I know our host had (has) a thing for Sully. He had finally dropped his link into the ‘mocked’ category a while back but quietly elevated it until some fresh outrage appeared.

I can think of a few things GG has written I was glad I had read (not enough that I stop by regularly but I used to) I have never, in my entire life, not even once, read anything Andrew Sullivan has written and thought “WOW! That as great, I feel better/smarter/happier – pick one – for having read that. Because of his treatment here (which I value more than his treatment by what passes for the media today) I have always assumed I missed something. This thread, and to a greater degree that link (I needed a cigarette after reading it B-{D) are telling me I missed nothing.

@Schlemizel: As far as I can tell, everyone who posts here has always hated Andrew Sullivan, to the point where he’s barely relevant. OTOH, Greenwald still gets plenty of defending, both from the front page and in comments, so the arguments are more heated and nasty. So the temperature of discussion around Greenwald is hotter than it is around Sullivan, but no one much cares for Sullivan, and a third to a half of the commentariat still dig Greenwald.

It would seem that to be awarded the “Permanent Pundit” merit badge from the corporate media, one must espouse at least a right-of-center ideology, just like all Real Heartland Americans.

The Democrats would do well to figure this out and then continue to push “center-right policies”. Doesn’t matter if those policies are soshulist–just call them center-right. Keep declaring themselves the center-right party. Own that name. Take it back. Or at least attempt to do that.

Our media is useless. They’ve proven the love anything that is “center-right”. So make sure your own policies are “center-right”, no matter what they are.

OK – I see that, thanks. At least that is a plausible explanation. I hadn’t noticed that because I have seen Sully pieces put up in what I thought to be a positive light and not heard the sort of hate GG develops. But thinking back I guess GG does have more support amongst the rabble than Sully so you are on to something.

I mentioned this a few days ago in a thread where people were going off the deep end about Greenwald. I do not understand why people cannot forgive GG his failings when he is very much on our side on so many topics but they luvs them some Sully who is so not on our side & so often wrong.

Because Greenwald is a pompous, sanctimonious, mean-spirited, intellectually dishonest, abusive ass who’s in love with the sound of his own voice and intolerant of opposing views. Sullivan is merely pompous, sanctimonious, and in love with the sound of his own voice.

Have you ever heard him propose a solution, or just argue against something?

This is the core issue for the entire world of punditry, whether it is Greenwald, Sullivan, Limbaugh, Hannity, Maddow, the FPers here, or just about EVERYONE else I can think of. The Guardian does not want Greenwald to be a policy wonk, and MSNBC does not want Ed Schultz to present both sides of an issue.

It is so easy – too easy – to play devil’s advocate on any non-trivial issue. Just google for flip-flops, gaffes, inconsistent positions, etc, mix in a little snark, and then stick the boot in really hard. The media business demands audience attention, and that is the way to achieve that. So that is what the pundits do.

It happens here all the time as well, and there is nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes, but it only addresses the tip of the iceberg. By the time Greenwald (say) has explained why (say) the killing of OBL was illegal, he just doesn’t have the time or column space (or inclination?) to then say, “OK, so that’s why we shouldn’t have killed OBL. Now here is what we should have done instead…”.

Same here. There is a feeding frenzy on gun nuts, but who here is suggesting VIABLE approaches to get gun legislation passed? Perhaps a million parent march? Perhaps start a movement that will take their kids out of school if there are armed guards? Perhaps target gun nut politicians in future elections? Hell, I don’t know either. But I do know that coming up with viable alternative solutions is difficult, and “boring” to read about, but the sneer is cheap and easy.

Agree about Crusty – I assume if he actually intends to run for Prez. he will “disappear” for a week or two after which it will be announced that he has started a diet/excessive regime that will cause him to magically lose a couple of hundred pounds. Sort of like Rev Huckelberry did.

As a group voters really are shallow. If the best possible candidate were overweight or not particularly good looking he or she (particularly is it were she) wouldn’t stand a chance.

Because Greenwald is a pompous, sanctimonious, mean-spirited, intellectually dishonest, abusive ass who’s in love with the sound of his own voice and intolerant of opposing views. Sullivan is merely pompous, sanctimonious, and in love with the sound of his own voice.

Sullivan is being intellectually dishonest when he says “I was aware of the piece’s flaws but nonetheless was comfortable running it as a provocation”. I don’t understand how you can argue otherwise.

You’re crazy, Burns P.B., Esquire. Sully is a fuckin’ Reaganite. It’s only on the surface that he can even seem tolerable.

GG may be prickly on the outside, but is liberal, antiwar, anti-state violence, and pro-civil liberties, and he’s making an honest stab at afflicting the comfortable. Since “the comfortable” includes quite a few Democrats these days, he’s made quite a few enemies; and since he’s openly tried to judge the current administration by the same standards he used on the previous administration, he’s seen by some extremely simple-minded partisans as an enemy of the cause. He does important but largely thankless work.

To say he and Sully differ only in “degree” is wrong, as wrong as can be. On’e a wolf in sheep’s clothing; the other’s a candid friend: truly candid and a true friend.

And yeah, I know I just ordered the large sack of hateburgers: serve ’em up; I brought my appetite.

@Schlemizel:
Because Greenwald lies. He lies like a lawyer, telling you half the truth and pretending the arguments that make his position bullshit do not exist. He lies by claiming the authority of a constitutional lawyer, but doesn’t tell you the actual law, only what he wishes it were.

That’s bad enough, but he does this under a false flag. A large number of liberals trust him, and assume he’s trying to advance their agenda. He lies to people who trust him as an expert. His lies are designed to harm the liberal agenda, not promote it. He’s not a civil libertarian, he’s just a plain old ‘all government is evil’ regular libertarian. His positions further no cause, they only attack everyone with any power with no distinction.

To put it bluntly, he’s a ratfucker, and I believe the most effective and important ratfucker in American politics. His lies get a LOT of traction and become narratives. When you put all this together, he’s earned some really grinding hate from liberals who’ve caught him in the act lying.

@Schlemizel: I see that as a possibility. Huckabee did it as part of his “send letters to fat kids’ parents” program when he was Governor. Got a lot of good press for it.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Christie’s weight is more a part of his brand than Huckabee’s was. He could go on a “diet and exercise program” (surgery) but like Samson and his hair, I think it might weaken him. He’s a bully and he literally can throw his weight around. It works for him. I don’t know how well the bully thing would work if he were a normal size. Not as well would be my guess.

I think it works in Jersey and general vicinity, but I don’t think that a Soprano’s attitude coupled with a guy who sweats, gets short of breath and has to take a bunch of days off to recuperate is going to play in the rest of the country.

Yeah, it’s inescapable, plastered all over newsstands on NYC streets and subways. And that caption must make Springsteen squirm just a little.

One sociopolitical phenomenon that’s going to be fascinating to watch develop in the next few years is how fitness-crazed America will come to embrace and identify with the obese Christie. (which is not to suggest that weight discrimination in American culture should not be addressed)

An early signal: just last week the NYT published an article that the National Institute of Health’s Body-Mass Index (BMI) measure, that now classifies a significant fraction of Americans as overweight or obese, should be reevaluated.

So I do expect that whether presidential aspirants can shoot hoops or ride bikes (or wind surf) will become increasingly irrelevant to the mass media and public’s estimation of a candidate’s qualifications and character. (“Who would you rather have a keg of beer with?”)

And with Christie’s demanding schedule as governor and more as a bobblehead show fixture, he probably would not have the time necessary for weight reduction surgery.

When Sullivan changes his views, he makes it about him and does it publicly. When he doesn’t, he doubles down. Either way, you do at least get to know where he stands at any given moment. Say what you will (and I did, up above), but there’s at least an ethos there.

GG, on the other hand, transforms himself from ‘brand’ to ‘brand’ and relies on nobody noticing. He started out as a pro-GWB libertarian (low taxes), became a hero of the left during the later Bush years, and is now an anti-Obama ‘civil libertarian’, obsessed with drones. Who knows what he’ll be in 2020.

@Rex Everything: No, Sullivan is a Thatcherite. Whether that is worse or better than a Reaganite is a question I leave open. Also, I think it is a mistake to cast Greenwald as either a liberal or a leftist. He is a civil libertarian absolutist. Like most absolutists, he is rigid and inflexible. One can see this a good or bad thing.

Maybe for Sully it all just boils down to a pathological need to ingratiate himself with those in power or on the ascendency and all the tortured blather about “my thinking has evolved” and dopey contrarian pseudoscience and “I’m still proud of it” stuff is simply to provide the veneer of independence for his self image.

A large number of liberals trust him, and assume he’s trying to advance their agenda. He lies to people who trust him as an expert. His lies are designed to harm the liberal agenda, not promote it. He’s not a civil libertarian, he’s just a plain old ‘all government is evil’ regular libertarian.

And this, Schlemizel, is what’s known as complete bullshit. You should get used to hearing spiels like this (without one shred of example or citation), from a whole lot of very special people like Frankensteinbeck, if you’re going to bring up GG.

Rome Again left her phone number at the office of OnlyMike’s ex-apartment. It’s around corner from where she is. She is in Phoenix and wants to help him. She knows of cheap, good, cat friendly apartments. She can set up PayPal for OnlyMike without a bank account so we can all help.

If OnlyMike does come back online would anyone who sees him – like eemom posted – let him know that Rome Again’s phone number is at the office.

Possible plan: If he can move cats to 90 day home he mentioned, then go into treatment for 30 days, then come out, and get good, cheap place with help from Rome Again (and VA and BJ), then cats can come live with him. And he will be stabilized and can get a nice, structure creating, not emotionally draining job, with VA help, and continue treatment and take life like we all do, step by step. It’s just one plan idea among many. But it’s a thought.

Just passing along the info. Rome Again is the person on the ground willing to help.

But if everyone can help connect OnlyMike and Rome Again that would be great.

I think it works in Jersey and general vicinity, but I don’t think that a Soprano’s attitude coupled with a guy who sweats, gets short of breath and has to take a bunch of days off to recuperate is going to play in the rest of the country.

This. Sweat and a five o’clock shadow (in a debate that he won) lost Nixon the 1960 election.

I mentioned this a few days ago in a thread where people were going off the deep end about Greenwald. I do not understand why people cannot forgive GG his failings when he is very much on our side on so many topics but they luvs them some Sully who is so not on our side & so often wrong.

This thread is over, but here I am tossing a few more chips on the fire.

Some of us – well, two of us – were merely worried that America’s excellent private healthcare system would be hobbled by too much government regulation.

That’s the bit that slapped me awake. Sully was wrapped in the cozy excellence of private healthcare and didn’t want to be disturbed at all. What an ass. What sort of person would even think such a thing, much less post it to a permanent, worldwide space and advertise said assishness?

There is some evidence that an atheist has less chance than an obese person.

Neither has any chance at all of winning the presidency, but atheists are at least gaining ground in society. The stigma is going away.

But there is a visceral dislike for grossly obese people in western societies, and my impression is that it is increasing. They are seen as the people who cause your health insurance costs to increase, the people who cause your baggage allowance to decrease, the people who lack discipline, etc.

Even obese people don’t like obese people. An obese person will never be president.

mentioned this a few days ago in a thread where people were going off the deep end about Greenwald. I do not understand why people cannot forgive GG his failings when he is very much on our side on so many topics but they luvs them some Sully who is so not on our side & so often wrong.

Greenwald is the type of liberal ally who’d start a civil war against his own allies to get his way and then decide they were his enemies all along, attributing the worst motives possible to his former friends. Motives they must have had all along.

He’s actually not much different than 60s “left”. Those of us who followed that left earlier on in our lives and ended up with nothing don’t see a reason to go following around it’s new form.

Sully is just a tool. A very bad tool. At one time a more powerful tool. I don’t want him to be considered a “progressive leader” either, and thankfully he’s not setting that agenda.

GG may be prickly on the outside, but is liberal, antiwar, anti-state violence, and pro-civil liberties, and he’s making an honest stab at afflicting the comfortable. Since “the comfortable” includes quite a few Democrats these days, he’s made quite a few enemies; and since he’s openly tried to judge the current administration by the same standards he used on the previous administration, he’s seen by some extremely simple-minded partisans as an enemy of the cause. He does important but largely thankless work.

And this is what’s known as complete bullshit. You should get used to hearing spiels like this (without one shred of example or citation), from a whole lot of very special people like Rex Everything, if dare to disparage GG.

I say show your work, son. Provide some links to show us that he’s a liberal.

@Amir Khalid: There is that brief moment when one wonders if the whole experience of prohibition and death panel brohahahas have been retconned, but then one remembers this is ‘Merca and so it’s clearly a rhetorical questi

ETA escuse me for the thread tourism.
this wreck left as an amusing warning to Keep,your tabs and threads clearly unconfuzzled!

If you see that as “intellectually dishonest,” then you and I have irreconcilably different views of what that term means.

It is most emphatically not intellectually dishonest to say, in effect, “I dont believe in/agree with X, but it is something that needs to be examined so I’m putting it out there for the purpose of facilitating that examination.”

What you are in effect saying is “it is intellectually dishonest to hold or espouse any view with which I don’t agree.” That’s nonsense.

It is most emphatically not intellectually dishonest to say, in effect, “I dont believe in/agree with X, but it is something that needs to be examined so I’m putting it out there for the purpose of facilitating that examination.”

It absolutely is intellectually dishonest when you know that the information you are putting out is false, and don’t say so at the time of publication, then, when the shit hits the fan, loftily claim that you were publishing lies “as a provocation”.

Not only was Sullivan intellectually dishonest, but he didn’t have the integrity to own up to his massive fuckup.

@Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches:
Had a prof in college who would “debate” everyone about everything. What he actually did was argue with everyone. And if he convinced you he would change sides and argue with you until you changed back to your original point or stopped.
In short, he was a bully. There was no underlying point to this other than I think he was bored. But all it did was to piss off anyone paying any attention and trying to learn something. Of course I learned(again) that a bully does not have to be a physical one to be effective. And that is GG’s stick, he is a bully. He uses a lot of words and sometimes actually makes a good point but in the end he is still an ass. Sully just skips the middle part about sometimes making a good point.

Wow. I had never read Sullivan during his TNR days and really didn’t even know about the NYT affiliation. I’ve only have read him since the ’08 elections. To say he is passionate really missed the point for me. The obsession with marijuana laws, his meltdown over Obama’s debate, the Trig birtherism, his embrace of McArdle, etc. left a really bad taste in my mouth so much that I stopped visiting his blog altogether. I definitely wouldn’t pay for that type of “journalism” but to each his own. I do thank the author of this piece because I did not know anything about his past except the Charles Murray embrace. I must be really naive because I am literally stunned.

I emailed you twice a couple of days ago. Can you get into your email account? If you can’t, request a password change. I have Gmail also and they are very cooperative about helping you get your account back into your possession. If you have set up a test phrase, all the better.

I dropped by your complex two nights ago,I left my phone number at the office. I live right behind your complex. I have some ability to help, but I’m not able to place cats. I’m usually the one who cats get placed with. I don’t have any experience with the other end. I would like to help you get a Paypal account and get you set up so we can take up a collection for you. I would also like to help you get a kitty friendly apartment that won’t break your wallet, but apparently you aren’t ready for that yet. Let’s talk.

I’ll make a trip over there in a short while and see if I can catch you. I missed you two nights ago and then waited yesterday for a phone call after leaving my number but apparently you didn’t get it (ARGH!)

@Ted & Hellen: Man, you just can’t help yourself. You could join in, offer something to this conversation, be a part of a discussion, but instead, you say something deliberately insulting and then say it again to someone else in the vain hope of stirring up an argument. I’ve said it before just to be condescending, but I have never felt more sorry for you than right now.

I would totally have been on board with Iraq if I thought it was legal and and not based on lies and the prisoners were treated in accordance with the Geneva convention and I have never forgiven Sully for categorizing me with the anti-american left. I’m just looking for legal wars I can agree with and won’t stop until I get them.

Two things:
I get the same bullshit from those attacking GG – look at people here who try to claim the Sully is less evil for the same shit.

I’m not really interested in a pissing contest. There have been a couple of good arguments made in 150 comments & a lot of hot air & vitriol that do a much better job of highlighting my point about the love for the two than it does explain it.

Thats all Douche & Bag ever does. There is never any attempt to discuss, just raw trolling. They someone responds and they get to whack off furiously as it is the only attention they can get.

If you can’t or won’t filter Douche & Bag out train yourself to skip comments from them. If we ignore Douche & Bag there will be a few days of them trying to flood comments in a desperate cry for attention. They could, at least in theory, make reading comments impossible for a day or two if their tantrum can last that long. But once they are not longer getting their sexual needs satisfied here they will find some other nice people to annoy. I pity Douche & Bag but I pity their victims more.

@Schlemizel: That’s prettymuch what I’ve been doing lately. But that little performace today struck me as so utterly sad. Yeah, we all say some pretty volatile shit to one another, but in the end, most of us are decent people. Pedobear isn’t, but you can’t win them all. But for the first time I saw that glimpse of that real, pathetic person just begging for attention. It struck me about how terribly lonely it must be. I can understand why, but still.

Because Greenwald is a pompous, sanctimonious, mean-spirited, intellectually dishonest, abusive ass who’s in love with the sound of his own voice and intolerant of opposing views.
And because NONE of the front pagers or commenters here at BJ ever fit this description. Never.

My comments are offered in the spirit of selfless love of my fellow humans, as humble offerings which others are free to reference for self improvement and to emulate in the hope of achieving my own level of enlightenment.

@Schlemizel: Two different things. I don’t think of Sully as a leftie. He’s a gay man with an issue about circumcision who wants to smoke dope, but in terms of the VSPs, he’s not as important as he once was. He actually was very important for changing the gay movements into marriage promoting army joining normal people. And when they write the history in 100 years, that legacy is going to be debated. But these days? No. He’s not Chuck Todd. He was never Tim Russert. Or Drudge.

But in terms of the american progressives, yes. Greenwald sets the terms through which american military and security issues are interpreted as just or unjust, legal or illegal on the progressive side of spectrum.

@Schlemizel: See what I mean? It’s just so incredibly unhappy. You’d almost feel sorry for it, but then it talks again. It’s so unbelievably damaged that it doesn’t know how to interact with others. This is why parents need to be kind and loving or they end up with this. Honestly, While I’ll never feel sorry for it, I do empathize with the people in its life it crosses paths with regularly. Can you imagine being a parent or grandparent to such a thing? They must feel like absolute failures.

Re Glenn Greenwald
Last night we had a difference of opinion on a squib by Ezra Klein, so I would regret if you were to think I’m needling you on what are perhaps degrees of interpretation or emphasis.

I follow rather closely many left/progressive websites (in fact, on some issues Balloon Juice may be the most conservative blog I read regularly). While Greenwald is certainly a respected voice within the American left (and I generally share that appreciation), it overstates the case that he “sets the terms.”

On “American military and security issues”, I’d suggest Tom Englehardt, Andrew Bacevich, and Thom Hartmann are more prominent figures. Even on matters of civil liberties and human rights, Scott Horton, Mark Danner, Ronald Dworkin, and Chris Hedges are opinion leaders and shapers as much as Greenwald. The Nation magazine, under Katrina vanden Heuvel’s editorship, is the primary locus of liberal/progressive reporting and analysis.

Again, I don’t wish to belabor a matter of perspective and of course I regret if I’ve misunderstood your comment. I do want to say that I find myself for the most part in agreement with your commentary. However, it has long puzzled me why, given his relative status and influence, Greenwald is such a bete noire to some regular participants here.

@Cassidy:
In the thread (yesterday?) in which Mother Teresa was being discussed, somebody (Gex?) asserted that Mother Teresa was a way bigger asshole than she was commonly assumed to be. T&H did that little “Reliable cites and links, please” thing that he often does. When they were provided, he disappeared for the rest of the thread (or as much of it as I saw) without so much as a “thanks for the links/info.”
Doesn’t seem to be the behavior of somebody interested in discussion or debate. T&H is a troll with impressive thread-derailing skills and some personal issues. I have him pie’d at home but not at work so I sometimes see his comments. He’s good at getting under folks’ skin and getting them to respond.

As for your Mother Teresa thing, do YOU always obsessively check back to threads forever and ever and ever? I know I don’t.

I will look at your links, but I’ve read a lot about the Mother Teresa accusations before, and I just think she did a lot more good than bad. Which is pretty much the most any of us can hope to do. And I can guarantee she did a LOT more good than you and I put together, regardless of her flaws.

@Marc: “A healthy political movement embraces converts. The urge to excommunicate someone like Sullivan is quite strong for some, and I don’t understand it. He is very good on some topics. He is very wrong on others. But he is worth reading on a pretty wide range of subjects. ”

@Schlemizel: Speaking only for myself, I dislike them both for similar reasons: they’re gay white men who only start to give a shit about progressive issues when they impact their own white male privilege.

Initially I thought maybe Sully might not actually be racist, but he certainly never hesitates to carry water for racists. Then pulled the “Prop 8 is black people’s fault’ bullshit, never once mentioning the about of money the Mormons and his beloved Catholic Church poured into getting that abomination passed, and I realized that there is no reason to take seriously anything from an out gay man who self-identifies as a Catholic because he’s clearly delusional.

As for GG, I was through with him well before Obama was elected in 2008. His defense of Ron Paul’s racist connections and dismissing David Neiwert’s pointing out that perhaps a guy who takes money from Stormfront might agree with them as “guilt by association” infuriated me. And when he told ABL that she’d defend Obama “even if he raped a nun”, that was so far over the line as to be in another galaxy.

@handsmile: “While not disagreeing with your larger point that “Permanent Pundits” professionally inhabit a disgrace- or shame-free zone, I’m struggling to think of one from that ethically invulnerable class who became “left-liberal,” much less lost their job because of it. ”

Actually, there is one, and his name is Paul The Krugman.

And in a way it’s an interesting thing. I know very well why NYT hired him back in ’99/’00 – he was the sort of ‘centrist’ who’d worry most about the people directly to his left. They must have figured that he’d write under the name ‘Even the Liberal Paul Krugman’. The only theory which makes sense contradicts my One Way theory above, and it’s that once they committed to him, they couldn’t fire him, because he was then one of the ‘in crowd’.

No, I can’t see Douche & Bags comments. It would be a shame if they ever actually added something valuable to the conversation here.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA – gasp – hahahahahahahahahahaha

yeah, that will never happen. But I am old & have been fighting my whole life so I will continue to campaign for people to just ignore this waste of breath until people stop responding to the bait. Maybe I can win this one. They will continue trolling as long as people respond to them. The only way to put an end to them is to filter and/or ignore them

I love this blog and I heart you guys, but geez, I love this blog and I heart you guys, but I still enjoy reading Sullivan and mostly enjoy reading Greenwald. I don’t get why that’s so bad. (be kind to me, haven’t really posted a lot, although I’ve lurked a bunch.)

Let’s start with Greenwald’s Guardian page, shall we? His 15 most recent posts are displayed up front, dating back to Dec. 15. I think they give a pretty representative sample of what his concerns are. They are:

1. The excessive harshness of Bradley Manning’s prosecution
2. Manning’s mistreatment while detained
3. Pro-torture sentiment from John Brennan and the film Zero Dark Thirty
4. Brennan’s unfitness for the post of CIA director, due to his past pro-torture statements and instances of dissembling
5. Chuck Hagel’s fitness for the post of Defense Secretary, based on his antiwar statements and his apologies for past bigotry
6. A critique of the “War on Terror” from an antiwar perspective
7. The French gov’t’s censorship of Twitter (GG opposes this)
8. Suspicious activity by the Log Cabin Republicans
9. The renewal of warrantless eavesdropping (GG is opposed)
10. U.S. brutality abroad causing increased Muslim support for Al Qaeda
11. The Israel Lobby’s “smear campaign” against Chuck Hagel
12. The disparate reaction to the deaths of innocent children here vs abroad
13. A new organization dedicated to freedom of the press (GG supports this)
14. The racist justice system enabled by the “anti-Terror” paradigm
15. Pro-torture propaganda in the film Zero Dark Thirty

These are quintessentially liberal concerns. In every case above, Greenwald’s position is the anti-war, anti-power, pro-civil liberties position. In every case above, GG champions the side on which liberalism has historically found itself, the side of right as opposed to might, the side that has always been the real justification for and strength of the leftist position.

To say that such a blogger is “conservative” is to engage in a comical level of absurdity. Find me one, just one, conservative blogger whose front page looks looks anything like the above.

@Rex Everything: I think unfortunately we’ve run into that situation where libertarian is confused. I consider him a libertarian; not an ashamed Republican who calls themselves a libertarian to sound cool.

And again, I don’t see positions inconsistent with that. His goal may coincide with liberals, and I’ve got no issue with pragmatism and allies, but GG isn’t about liberal principles. GG is about GG.

Greenwald: “In 2005, American liberals achieved one of their most significant political victories of the last decade. It occurred with the resounding rejection of George W Bush’s campaign to privatise social security.

“…That victory established an important political fact. While there are very few unifying principles for the Democratic party, one (arguably the primary one) is a steadfast defence of basic entitlement programs for the poor and elderly – social security, Medicare and Medicaid – from the wealthy, corporatised factions that have long targeted them for cuts.”

@Rex Everything: I wasn’t implying racist. I was implying bigot. There is a difference. As a liberal, I’m sure you don’t support state sponsored bigotry. So, you can take it as admission of your right or whatever, but the underlying implications that you somehow continuously blame the most prominent black man, and our POTUS, for all the ills of the world even when there are clearly other people to blamed says a lot.

Seriously, help me out here, because I don’t see a lot of other options. Republicans act crazy…Obama’s fault. Republican’s obstruct everything…Obama’s fault. Years of climate danger…Obama’s fault. At what point are we supposed to not wonder what the hell else you could be thinking? The most liberal POTUS in modern America just isn’t good enough for you. So honestly, at this point, I gives a fuck if you’re offended. I give’s a fuck if you’re dismayed. And I certainly don’t give a flying fuck if you feel aggrieved.

If all the glories of Obama’s policies and true intentions could be actualized by another president if only he or she were white, why then, isn’t it kind of stunningly selfish and arrogant of him to insist on being president at this time in history. Why, think of all the people of color who would benefit if only Joe Biden were president and opposition fell away.

Clearly, the patriotic, decent thing for Obama to do is admit his mistake and resign immediately.

Sully is not going to be deprived of funds. The market doesn’t work like that. There is no meritocracy in hard numbers. He’s only gotta get a handful of readers to turn a profit. People used to do it with quarterly newsletters back in the day.

my biggest problem with sullivan right now is this whole “future of journalism” thing that’s being paraded around.

If sullivan succeeds independently, he won’t be paving a way for journalism. he will be paving a way for punditry or editorializing or simply writing and art. he’s a decent enough writer, and i understand in the big tent of journalism there is room for people who are purely pundits.

but his success means nothing for the core of journalism — going out there and finding stories, creating original content, giving accurate reports of events of the day. He does none of these things, he does a decent job aggregating some of it from others, but meh. If he succeeds it will be even more revolting to see twitter and blogs and all this shit blow up with some triumphalism for the new future of journalism!

I’m not sure why some intelligent media folks have even started this idea that he’s paving a new way for journalism. He’s not a journalist. This comprehensive takedown reinforces that fact, thank you for sharing.

@TXG1112: IMHO Sully doesn’t have anything interesting to say on art and/or culture that I couldn’t get from National Public Radio.

Full disclosure: during the W regime, I read with interest his posts opposing the use of torture. FWIW they did appear to constitute intelligent and principled conservative opposition at the time… Upon becoming aware of some of the facts Ames includes in his article, I’ve concluded the principles on display were merely those of the first rat who decides to leave the sinking ship.

Well, that all may be true about Andrew Sullivan’s excecrable record of supporting liars, racists, and warmongers, and continuing tendency toward sneering, insulting wrongness, but since he writes with the gift of 8 million Shakespeares times 12 million William Faulkners, I simply must keep reading him.

“However, it has long puzzled me why, given his relative status and influence, Greenwald is such a bete noire to some regular participants here.”

It’s mainly emotion. Greenwald isn’t original–you could find the same criticisms of various Obama policies all across the left, but GG is perhaps the most prominent one who is openly derisive of liberal hypocrisy on human rights issues. Chomsky in his day got the same response from centrist-liberals, but in the pre-internet era it was easier to ignore him or simply distort his arguments in some throw-away line. That option is harder now.

It’s not that GG is perfect–he could probably win friends and influence people a little more if he toned it down. But comparing him to a college professor who liked to pick fights is silly, as someone did, because college students are a captive audience. If you don’t like GG’s style, you could just read the links he provides. That was Chomsky’s value in his day too–back in the days before the internet, I’d find out about human rights reports from reading Chomsky and sometimes I’d even order them via snail mail from Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. We need obsessives like that, but invariably some people react with hurt feelings and pay too much attention to the imperfections of the messenger.